For Andrew Bacevich, a retired Army colonel and a professor of international relations at Boston University, the answers to these questions are muddled at best, depressing at worst.
Among the sharpest critics of American foreign policy in recent years, Bacevich has authored a number of books (including The Limits of Power and The Long War) documenting America’s entanglements abroad. His latest book, America’s War for the Greater Middle East, offers a sweeping look at America’s policies in the Middle East since the Carter administration.
The book begins with the Carter administration because two events in 1979 set America on its current course in the Middle East: the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Together these events cemented the view among American political leaders that access to Persian Gulf oil, then seen as indispensable, had to be protected. [...]
For Bacevich, America’s militarism is fueled by a false assumption about the reach and efficacy of military power. The presumption is that force, sufficiently employed, can achieve desired political goals across the world. This is a dangerous myth, Bacevich argues, and one our foreign policy establishment can’t seem to shake. [...]
That's a great point. This is why the Iran nuclear deal is potentially promising. On the face of it, the purpose is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. But I believe the actual purpose looks well beyond that. The real purpose is to begin a process of bringing Iran back into the international community and allowing Iran to play a responsible role in regional politics if the Iranian government chooses to do so. [...]
And so the challenge we face is figuring out how to maintain a semblance of stability, how to make it possible for these various actors to tolerate one another. Mutual coexistence needs to be the goal. Not peace on earth or goodwill toward men. Mutual toleration has to be the realistic goal.
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